ESSAY CEMETERY

In his 1757 treatise, "A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful", Edmund Burke presents his views on the concept of the sublime. He theorizes that the sublime is a powerful feeling evoked by the apprehension of danger or death. As such, it is an element central to many narratives that explore human experience. The element of the sublime is inherent in stories spanning different genres and eras, from historically realistic portrayals of war to cyberpunk visions of technologically-dominated futures. The sublime according to Burke is "the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling". This strongest emotion is not pleasant, but painful. Burke postulates that pain, danger and the prospect of death "are much more powerful than … pleasure". Death, he says, is more powerful than pain. Fear, "being an apprehension of pain or death", is an evoker of the sublime as well. The common thread to all these ...

THEMES/MOTIFS/INTERESTING THINGS - QUOTATIONS Time clues: referring to 20 th century technology as old 1. I'd had to turn both those twelve-gauge shells from brass stock, on the lathe, and then load then myself; I'd had to dig up an old microfiche with instructions for hand-loading cartridges; I'd had to build a lever-action press to seat the primers -all very tricky. 2. He raised out of the water, showing us the crusted plates along his sides, a kind of visual pun, his grace nearly lost under articulated armor, clumsy and prehistoric. Secrecy 1. The meet was set for the Drome at 2300, but I rode the tube three stops past the closest platform and walked back. Immaculate procedure. 2. The girls at Under the Knife were big on Sony Mao, and it was getting harder to keep them from adding the chic suggestion of epicanthic folds. It probably wouldn't fool Ralfi Face, but it might get me next to his table. Changing outer appearance via technology...

Johnny packs a gun that he made bullets for himself into a bag. He tries to get to the Drome without being seen. He is trying to get close to Ralfi Face without the latter noticing. Ralfi has been evading Johnny, because the former owes Johnny money for a service Johnny provides- storing information he has no access to, retrievable only by Ralfi. Johnny heard that Ralfi hired a hitman to kill him so he changed his appearance and arranged a meeting with him under the pseudonym Edward Bax. Johnny, with his altered appearance, manages to sit next to Ralfi and his security guard. Ralfi recognizes Johnny and notices the gun. He triggers a neural disruptor which paralyzes Johnny. Ralfi reveals that the information stored in Johnny's brain he bought from someone who stole it from the Yakuza, a dangerous gang. Johnny understands that Ralfi is trying to kill him to end his involvement with the Yakuza. There are programs, called Squids, which can hack the brains of idiot savants, even...